Exec Seeking A Swan Song

Steve Miller Has His Work Cut Out For Him At Waste Management. But He Has Solved Major Crises Before. This Time, Though, He Hopes To Get The Firm Back On Track So He Can Return To Retirement, His Family And The Job Of Building His Railroad.

December 07, 1997|By Sallie L. Gaines, Tribune Staff Writer.

SUNRIVER, Ore. — Robert Stevens Miller Jr. has a compelling reason to find a permanent chairman for Waste Management Inc. as soon as possible: He has a railroad to run in Oregon.

And before he can run it, he has to finish building it--something that's darn hard to do while playing troubleshooter at Oak Brook-based Waste Management, where he has been interim CEO since late October.

Miller--"Steve" to everybody except his birth certificate--is paying the price of having two passions that do not mix well. He loves retirement, his family and his trains. But he's also passionate about following through on promises, explicit or implied. And by accepting a seat on a corporate board, he believes he's promised to do whatever's necessary to help that company.

His first passions are reflected clearly in the house he and his wife Maggie--"Margaret" only to people who've never met her--built in this central Oregon resort community. It's a huge house for family and entertaining, with niches for her archeological artifacts (she's an amateur archeologist) and eclectic glassware. There is quiet, private space for him and computers for her.

And, of course, the 2,500-square-foot basement where he and Maggie are in Year One of a 10-year project to build a 1950s-style model-train layout. The Coos-Deschutes Railway will be their interpretation of a trip from their home (in Deschutes County) to their beach house (in Coos County), complete with mountains, trees, towns and people--all perfectly to scale, all perfectly painted.

His second passion is reflected in his weekly trips from Sunriver to Chicago on Waste Management's corporate jet. He accepted the jobs of chairman and chief executive on a temporary basis while the company looks for a permanent successor to Ronald T. LeMay, who shocked his board and investors by quitting to return to Sprint Corp. in Kansas City on Oct. 29.

On that Wednesday, Miller was in Pittsburgh to speak to a crisis-management class at Carnegie Mellon University. After hearing the news from LeMay in the morning, Miller called his wife. "She said, `You're going to have to step in and take charge,' " he says. His reaction: "Yes, dear."

During a class break, he called to find out what his fellow board members had decided to do.

"You got elected interim chairman and chief executive officer, and we're sending the Waste Management plane to pick you up," he recalls being told. "The first non-insiders to know what was going on was this class."

While insisting he's not available for the long term, Miller, 56, has poured himself into the job. He launched a restructuring program that will condense 250 business units into 32 and eliminate 1,200 jobs. He persuaded two allies from previous jobs to join Waste Management as outside directors, shook up the board's committees and ushered out company co-founder Dean Buntrock. He spends countless hours talking with investors and analysts.

And he wants to go home to Sunriver, which consists of about 3,000 houses--most of them second homes for the wealthy--nestled amid the trees near the Deschutes National Forest.

So, one might ask, why doesn't he?

"There is no way on earth you can plan this kind of life," he says. "It just kind of happens. But the more you do it, the more your name gets around."

That's the crux of it: Miller has made a name for himself turning companies around--Chrysler, Morrison Knudsen and Federal-Mogul all show his handiwork--and he relishes the challenge. "That's when you really find out what you're made of as a manager," he says.

Unlike other turnaround artists, like Al Dunlap, Miller does not come across like a tyrant. He has a low-key but witty style that rallies the troops, says Jack Pope of UAL Corp., who has worked with him on corporate boards for years. "He brings a very good style, a very clear-headed analytical way of thinking, no nonsense. This will not be an ego sort of thing, it will not be a politically correct sort of thing."

Miller doesn't yell or swear. He doesn't wave his arms around or pace the floor. He's quiet, but exudes confidence. That demeanor is complemented by his physical presence--he's well over 6 feet tall and weighs in around 200. He said he has no reason to act like a bull: "I don't have anything to prove. I have a decent record."

Miller owes his star billing, in part, to Lee Iacocca, who Chrysler Corp. hired to save it from bankruptcy in 1979. Iacocca, who had been fired by Ford Motor Co., "started hiring people from his black book at Ford," Miller says. One of the first hires was Gerald Greenwald, president of Ford of Venezuela, who quickly recruited Miller, his vice president for finance.

"Going to Chrysler--if there was a defining moment of my life, that was it," Miller says.